About OU Medicine

At OU Medicine, our mission is leading health care. Our vision is to be the premier enterprise for advancing health care, medical education and research for the community, state and region. Through our combined efforts we strive to improve the lives of all people.

Children's Services

Education & Research

The College of Medicine is the largest component of the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and is at the center of OU Medicine. Our mission is leading health care - in education, research and patient care.

This #1 New York Times Bestseller memoir by Dr. Kalanithi offers wisdom from a doctor who became a terminally ill patient to patients, families, and physicians.

What is "palliative" care?

It is "HOPE". . .

The Institute of Medicine (1997) defined palliative care as care which ". . .seeks to prevent, relieve, reduce, or soothe the symptoms of disease or disorder without affecting a cure."

Palliative care is medical treatment that is directed to "care" for the physical, spiritual and psychological needs of patients and support for their caretakers.

Palliative care should be available to both adults and children early in the course of any medical treatment, and particularly in treatment of serious, chronic illness.

It should be provided alongside any medical treatment intended to "cure" illness and continued to provide quality of life "care" when there is no cure.

Palliative care is the response to a patient's and family's hope for effective pain management and emotional comfort from physicians, nurses, social workers, chaplains and other health providers who never stop caring, who never give up on comfort, who always put the patient first. Palliative care is the "good news" in difficult times of serious, chronic illness.

Palliative care is not restricted to those who are dying. It is focused on the patient and caretakers to recognize the pain and anxiety which accompany serious, chronic, life-limiting illness. Palliative care should be available to both adults and children early in the course of any medical treatment.

OUHSC Family Medicine Dog honored by American Medical Directors Association Foundation in the Caring Canine Calendar.

B.W. (Bow Wow) Winnicott, named after British child psychoanalyst D.W. (Donald Woods) Winnicott, and known by children in foster care as "Winnie" is a soft-coated wheaten terrier. She eagerly assisted her owner, Annette Prince, in therapy with Native American children in foster care in Anadarko, Oklahoma, and also helped at inpatient psychiatric units for Childrens' and University Hospitals in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.